Min tibetanska barndom i Zorgay - Life and Culture on the Tibetan ...

eloquent. But a goddess is difficult to move <strong>and</strong>, even if she is
touched, she may not weep. This method does not work for
long, however, because the water goddess soon misses her
husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> stops shedding tears.
There was a time when the weather was uncommonly
hot <strong>and</strong> dry, causing much pain <strong>and</strong> distress. If we wasted even
a pinch of tsampa during this time, elders scolded, "Eat dust
instead of tsampa if you need more to waste." Villagers
performed many religious activities beseeching the deities to
send rain.
Villagers gathered during this hot, dry time <strong>and</strong> decided
to ask a venerable lama to tell us how to please the water deities
in order to bring rain. Our village leader, in accordance with the
lama's instructions, announced that everyone must be at home
<strong>and</strong> ready to participate on the designated day. He even went to
our primary school <strong>and</strong> asked the teachers to give permission to
students from our village to be absent from that day's classes.
All the young villagers were asked to go to the local monastery
to borrow the Kanjur <strong>and</strong> the Tanjur. Locals believe that
anyone who opens <strong>and</strong> reads these two scriptures will become
insane. We carried them from the monastery to our village on
our shoulders.
All the villagers assembled <strong>and</strong> circumambulated the
village, carrying the Kanjur <strong>and</strong> Tanjur, chanting mani loudly
in unison. Gray-bearded elders also came, supported by their
canes. This encouraged us to chant even louder. A blanket of
sooty clouds gathered in the center of the sky late that afternoon
<strong>and</strong> it rained so heavily that we did not have time to return to
our homes before we were soaking wet. This was followed by
rain every two or three days, which meant that the crops had
adequate water <strong>and</strong> flourished.
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